OPINION: Archbishop's challenge - revitalize church in U.S.

Margaret O'Brien Steinfels is co-director of the Fordham Center on Religion and Culture.

When I briefly met Timothy Dolan, then archbishop of Milwaukee, he came across as a jolly, glad-handing politician. When he came to New York as archbishop last year, I heard him speak on Catholic-Jewish relations, so I'd add to the jolly and glad-handing, his smarts and the ability to listen to others. His good will and energy have won over many New Yorkers, even those who disagree with him.

His election as president of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops this week surprised many Catholics who expected that Bishop Gerald Kicanas of Tucson, Ariz., vice president of the conference, would succeed to the presidency. That didn't happen for many reasons, including a malicious campaign against Kicanas for alleged laxness in allowing the ordination of a man later charged with sexual abuse. But as the dust has settled, it seems that the choice may have fallen to Dolan for reasons other than simple opposition to Kicanas.

Dolan demonstrates the vigor and intellectual acumen the bishops may feel they need after a divisive political battle against health care reform. Dolan is not a grouch, nor does he seem intent on driving a stake into the heart of his opponents. The bishops and their conference need someone who can step back from insisting that opposition to abortion and same-sex marriage are the only teachings that count.

Dolan will not have an easy time restoring to public esteem the coherence of the church's social teachings - esteem that in the 1980s made church documents on nuclear warfare and on the economy centerpieces of public discussion. In contrast, the bishops' conference has lost the confidence of many of the most loyal and pro-life Catholics by its working alliance with opponents of health care reform.

The bishops not only declared moral opposition to abortion - their right and, as Catholic leaders, their duty. They not only engaged in normal Capitol Hill lobbying to prevent public funding for abortion. They also put their religious authority behind highly debatable interpretations of the final bill, insisting that politicians and voters comply with their views.

Dolan's tenure as president of the bishops' conference will have to confront this overreaching. The struggles will begin a full year before the 2012 national election. In November 2011, the bishops would normally issue their quadrennial statement "Faithful Citizenship," linking church teaching to the range of policy issues that they urge Catholics to consider when voting. Will their statement insist on abortion and same-sex marriage as the only issues, or will they give areas representative of the range of Catholic teaching the exposure they need in hard economic times: unemployment, inequality, homelessness and poverty?

Will their statement address two wars about which the bishops would have once offered principles for judging their morality? The New START treaty, whose fate in the Senate now seems uncertain, was designed to scale down Russian and U.S. nuclear weapons; it once would have drawn a significant public statement from the bishops.

Having finished a stint as head of Catholic Relief Services, Dolan knows firsthand the dire conditions in Haiti and so many other places. Will the bishops address these challenges as Catholics approach the voting booth in 2012?

And then, there are internal church matters. New liturgical texts scheduled to come into effect before Christmas 2011 are matters of contention among both priests and people. Dolan is on the verge of closing dozens of Catholic schools in the Archdiocese of New York, but cost-containment measures won't make up for the falling off of financial support from lay people leaving the church in serious numbers.

The core of Dolan's challenge as archbishop and president of the conference is this steady loss of Catholics, especially younger ones. If the iconic image of the shepherd still has resonance among the bishops, Dolan will be challenged to show how to act as the man who knows how to care for the flock.